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Saturday, September 04, 2010

Step Four: Use the Hidden Consensus to Build Interest in Developing Breakthrough Knowledge and Skills

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.— Jude 1:2 (NKJV)

If you approve of some action, you are also likely to favorobtaining more results and faster benefits from the action,and using fewer resources to accomplish the action. Themore expensive, difficult, risky, or time-consuming theaction is, the more interest many leaders and stakeholderswill have in gaining breakthrough knowledge, skills,methods, and accomplishments.

Despite this interest, most people are naturally skepticalwhen you start talking about making exponentialimprovements. Breakthrough servants anticipateskepticism about such large gains and prepareconvincing proofs for the organization’s leaders beforeproposing breakthrough methods. Once breakthroughservants have convinced the leaders, they can rely on theleaders to decide how to share and to lead in persuadingstakeholders. Here are some possible sources of suchproofs:

• Breakthrough examples of what other organizationshave done• Breakthrough accomplishments by your organization• Your organization’s successes with 2,000 percentsolutions• Your organization’s stalls and stallbusters• Descriptions of how to engage in breakthroughprocesses• Ideal best practice lessons that are applicable to your organization’s intended actions

Normally, it’s hard to interest leaders in talking aboutpotential innovations in all but the smallest and mostinnovation-oriented organizations. However, any timethat highly regarded, risky, or expensive actions arebeing considered or begun, information related toenhancing those actions quickly spurts from the bottomto the top of an organization much like Old Faithfulgeyser in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park shootshot water and steam impressively many feet into the air.After you obtain convincing proof, you usually just needto alert your supervisor to that information and letnature take its course. At most, simply ask yoursupervisor later if he or she has passed along theinformation yet to her or his supervisor and followedup.

Let me describe some ways to obtain the six sources ofproof that I listed. Let’s start with breakthroughexamples of what other organizations have done. Someorganizations will usually have been more effective thanothers in engaging in similar or the same tasks as yourorganization is planning to do. Making leaders aware thatfast progress isn’t automatic usually triggers an interestin finding better methods. If the activities were not donerecently, you can probably find people who used to workfor that organization to tell you about what theirexperiences were including what worked well and whatdidn’t. In some cases, the experiences may bedocumented in recordings or transcripts of speeches,annual reports, articles, and books. The more sourcesyou find that document successes, problems, and missedopportunities, the more persuasive your breakthroughexamples will be.

If the breakthroughs occurred more recently, you willprobably have to rely on your stakeholders who arefamiliar with the other organization as well forinformation. Suppliers are often the best source,especially those who provide equipment or software,because they are often called on to assist in implementinga new activity. There will probably be relatively littleinformation that stakeholders can ethically provide thatisn’t confidential, but on general subjects (such as howlong the task took) they can probably share informationwithout violating any trust or confidences. If in doubtabout the appropriateness of answering your inquiry,just ask the knowledgeable person to check with theother organization for approval before telling youanything.

Breakthroughs accomplished in your own organizationoften have near-legendary status internally. As a resultof many people wanting to claim credit for such successes,you will find that a lot of inaccurate perceptions will havegrown up around what led to the success and how it wasaccomplished. Dig down and find the real data, and youwill be able to sift through any misinformation. In myexperience, a good number of the breakthroughs thatany organization has been celebrating for a long time willturn out not to have been breakthroughs at all but,rather, misperceptions of what occurred. In fact, youmight even find that some of the “breakthroughs” wereactually failures, but someone powerful recast them toprotect reputations.

The challenge in checking out the real data is finding outwho has what information. Here’s an example: Althoughthe breakthrough may concern customers, it may be thatthe effects can only be seen today by looking at historicalfinancial information kept in a small part of theorganization. In some cases, there isn’t any completehistorical financial information. In those instances, it’soften necessary to estimate the experience by assemblingbits and pieces of financial histories from different recordsand making reasonable assumptions. If you are fortunate,your organization has achieved some breakthroughs usingthe 2,000 percent solution process that are not yet widelyknown and appreciated. That’s not unusual. Whenever Icontact large companies about 2,000 percent solutions inseeking to find new examples, people at the top tell methat they don’t know of any such solutions. I hear thisreaction even from organizations where I have workedwith someone to create a successful 2,000 percentsolution. If you do have such an example, by all meansuse it to demonstrate the potential of what yourorganization can accomplish. If you don’t have such anexample to share, telling people that they can makeexponential improvements with the same time, effort,and resources can sound like either wishful thinking orinvoking black magic. Introducing people to theprocesses involved in locating and implementingbreakthroughs provides helpful knowledge about how adifferent approach might lead to new and more effectivemethods for accomplishing critical tasks.

Rather than first jumping into describing the eight-stepprocess, I suggest that you instead explore personal andorganizational stalls and stallbusters with those you needto inform. A revealing part of such a discussion can beshowing how many high-priority internal tasks havefaltered through many different initiatives and projects.Rather than drawing out some information to make thesepoints during meetings with the leadership team, it worksbetter to do the research in advance and to confirm whatyou learn with those who should know and with any datasources that are reliable.

When you start explaining the eight-step process, Iparticularly encourage you to spend enough time so thatyour leadership team understands a great many ways thatindividuals and organizations accomplish near-perfectresults every day. Feel free to draw on the Ideal PracticeBlueprint to help you.

If your group is willing to spend significant time learningabout the process, there’s no better way to begin suchlearning than by having them work together to create a2,000 percent solution. If you do the appropriate futureand ideal best practice research work and thinking inadvance for the task, you’ll find that any group candevelop a perfectly good 2,000 percent solution in amonth or so after meeting for just a few hours eachweek. If you don’t feel confident about doing this, firstdevelop a 2,000 percent solution in a similar area sothat you will be able to draw on that information andexperience as you work with the leadership group.

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About Me

I'm a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and attended Harvard Business School to study marketing while in law school. I'm a member of the bar in Massachusetts.
I teach graduate courses in entrepreneurship and strategic management on-line at Rushmore University (www.rushmore.edu).
I head a consulting firm (www.mitchellandco.com), that specializes in entrepreneurship, finance and strategy.
I am a co-author of The 2,000 Percent Solution (www.2000percentsolution.com), The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, The Ultimate Competitive Advantage (the most highly praised business book by customer reviewers in its first year), and The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook.
I head a pro bono site for improving world progress (www.fastforward400.com).
I have headed The Billionaire Entrepreneurs' Master Mind (see http://billiondollarbusiness.blogspot.com) since 2006.